Islamabad:
The Sunni Council Ittehad (SIC) asked the Supreme Court to add procedures in the case of the seats reserved until a decision is taken on the disputes of the 26th constitutional amendment.
The SIC and its president, Sahibzada Hamid Raza, filed three requests before the Supreme Court, requesting a live dissemination of the legal proceedings and a reconstruction of the current examination bench, proposing to replace it with the claim of PTI to all the reserved seats.
A constitutional bench of 11 members should resume the hearings of the examination petitions on Monday.
One of the applications notes that a large number of petitions contesting the 26th amendment are currently pending before the SC.
“The newly added article 191A (5) provides that all the petitions, calls or examination of requests against the judgments rendered or the orders adopted, to which the clause (3) applies, pending or deposited before the Supreme Court, before the start of the Constitution (twenty-sixth amendment), 2024, under the bench of the Constitution and will not be heard (4).”
The request maintains that there is an austere and well -established difference between an appeal and an examination court, because a petition or a request for revision is heard by the same bench which carried the judgment.
“An appeal is a continuation of the initial procedure, while the competence of review is governed by article 188 of the constitution read with the rules of the Supreme Court, 1980. It is subject that rule 8 of the XXVI ordinance of the rules of the Supreme Court, 1980, provides that, as regards, a request for examination will be published before the same bench which rendered the judgment.”
It is argued that, since article 188 expressly provides that such jurisdiction must be exercised in accordance with the rules – which require that a review is heard by the same bench which made the judgment – and that the initial provision adopted by the Constituent Assembly, there is a patented conflict with article 191a (5).
The latter, passed by the Majlis-e-Hoora (Parliament), will not lack legitimacy and moral authority.
Consequently, this last provision, insofar as it places exam requests before the constitutional bench, is zero and ultra vires the Constitution.
“Even if not, the power of modification under article 239 of the Constitution must be exercised as a sacred trust, as the order by the preamble to the Constitution. The above -mentioned article 191a (5), added by the 26th amendment, including the disposition relating to the hearing of requests for examination by the constitutional bench and the retrospective was useful, with a little respect, The Ellectural.
The petition also maintains that the right to a fair trial has been specifically raised in the petition contesting the ledges of the 26th amendment.
It is also argued that article 191a (5), insofar as it transfers the examination of competence to the constitutional bench, is in conflict with article 10a of the Constitution and therefore empty.
“Article 191a (5) of the Constitution, by which the difference between an appeal and a request for revision was ended and the jurisdiction of the bench which was rendered the judgment was removed to cancel the said judgment dated July 12, 2024, is manifestly against the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.”
The request also stipulates that the Pakistan Judicial Commission, which constitutes the constitutional bench, is practically under the control of the executive and can thus influence the exercise of the jurisdiction of the SC.
He notes that the oldest judges in the Superior Court have not been included in the constitutional benches trained in recent months, compromising judicial independence.
